“Revenue growth thus far has looked impressive. But going forward, I think we're already seeing signs that it's moderating. Anthropic did not report Q3 revenue numbers in the S1, but the Financial Times did… So it seems like we're already seeing revenue growth will start to slow. And I think maybe that's because the main buyers of Anthropic's products, Claude, are learning that, like, hey, we can do basically the same, but for a lot less with an open source model. It just doesn't really seem like the moat here is super strong.”
sputnikintelligence.com
Silverio was finishing the 'good' section of the breakdown of Anthropic's S-1. She had just covered revenue per employee and customer concentration, then turned to signs that revenue growth is slowing. She offers a hedged explanation: customers may be finding cheaper open-source models good enough.
…worried about customer concentration, and that seems to have declined a bit. In 2023, one buyer made up 43% of all of Anthropic's revenue, which is like super not great. And then in the first six months of this year, the biggest customer accounted for only 11% of sales. So that's moderated a bit.
…but I think more worrying given the likelihood that one or more of those customers could just go out of business overnight, because that is what venture is. It's like, it's a risky bet. You know, most startups fail. And it's worth noting that Anthropic did not disclose who those two buyers are.
Yeah. And they're startups with like potentially more money than they need. And so they're not really like evaluating costs with a ton of scrutiny. And, you know, I think we've almost kind of started to see like the potential risks of that, which brings me to my next point, which is that revenue growth thus far has looked impressive. But going forward, I think we're already seeing signs that it's moderating. Anthropic did not report Q3 revenue numbers in the S1, but the Financial Times did. And they estimate that Anthropic's Q3 revenue came in at like $16.8 billion, which is noticeably lower than their Q2, Q1 to Q2 quarterly growth. So it seems like we're already seeing revenue growth. will start to slow. And I think maybe that's because the main buyers of Anthropics products claud are learning that, like, hey, we can do basically the same, but for a lot less with an open source model. Yes. Like it just doesn't really seem like the moat here is super strong. So that's kind of where like the good ends, I would say. Like the good is a short list here.
Yeah.